


A Thousand Years

by MovesLikeBucky



Series: Ineffable [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-24 06:52:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19168030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MovesLikeBucky/pseuds/MovesLikeBucky
Summary: They always found each other, one way or the other.  Over centuries and centuries.  This is a snippet of three times they met, told from the perspective of a lovesick angel.





	A Thousand Years

**Author's Note:**

> -Falls face-first into this fandom- Oh hey guys what's going on in here?
> 
> First foray into the Good Omens fandom for me; I read the book a million years ago but the TV show has taken over my life for the past week so this was bound to happen.
> 
> Vaguely inspired by "A Thousand Years" by Christina Perri because I'm a SAP.
> 
> Enjoy!

Aziraphale had sworn he’d heard a violin crescendo but decided it must be the planes overhead mixed with a healthy dose of his own dizziness1. 

Crowley had saved him before, back in France.  Kept him from a nice beheading, thank goodness. The angel shuddered at the thought of the sheer amount of paperwork involved.  But he’d practically thrown him back in the cuffs when Aziraphale had tried to say thank you.  _My side doesn’t send rude letters,_ he had said.  The price for rescuing an angel seemed to be a high one, not that the angel could actually tell.  What was to stop Crowley from lying about that?

Then again, what would _his_ punishment be for helping a demon?

This was beyond a simple demonic intervention. Breaking some chains then going for crepes wasn’t exactly a _trying_ time, the angel was sure.  But braving consecrated ground, diverting an entire bomber, saving his beloved books on a whim; _this_ was…well, not difficult, surely.  But interesting, at the very least.  The Arrangement was one thing, their promise to each other stood as it had for centuries now, but Aziraphale had noticed something in Crowley’s actions that he hadn’t in the past.  He actually seemed to _care_.

Quite bizarre for a demon.

But as Aziraphale stood there holding the leather suitcase full of his favorite treasures, treasures that had been saved by the only being in any realm he could vaguely call a ‘friend’, he felt something tick differently inside him than before.

His heart was quickening, and he felt warm and light. He'd felt it before, but not quite so strongly.  It wasn’t often that his standard-issue body acted of its own accord.  He had to control things like breathing when necessary to keep up appearances, but it functioned fine without the…well…function. 

“Give you a lift home?” he heard Crowley shout from the other side of the rubble, breaking him from his momentary reverie.

“Yes, of course, thank you my dear…friend,” he replied and hurried to catch up, mentally chastising himself for using the term of endearment.  Crowley hadn’t seemed to notice2.

As they sped through the wreckage of what used to be the church, rubble flying away from the tires of the Bentley as though reversely magnetized, he held the suitcase tight to his chest and barely spoke.  Crowley droned on about something or other, but he just couldn’t listen.  Something had happened, a switch had been flipped.

Angels are beings made of love, by love, for love. Love of everything.  Love of ALL creatures, great and small.  Says it right there in the employee handbook3.  Love was a feeling he knew very well, as he felt it all around him for the entirety of his centuries-long stay on this planet.  This was…different.  And yet, it wasn’t. 

He had already loved Crowley.  Demons  _are_ living beings, aren't they4?  But this was almost consuming, like flying.  In fact, flying was something Aziraphale was quite proud of being quite good at thank-you-very-much.

This, in his mind, felt EXACTLY like that.  Just without the leaving-the-ground bit or the bugs-in-your-teeth bit.

“Oi, Angel,” Crowley waved a hand in front of Aziraphale’s face, “You awake in there or did those Nazi’s scramble your brain around?”

“Oh…sorry,” the angel stammered, “Just…preoccupied, I guess.”  He began to wring his hands together and decided the floorboard of the car was actually quite interesting.

“Like I was saying,” the demon continued without noticing the angel’s preoccupation, “If you don’t tell me where your bookshop is, we’re just gonna keep going in circles all night.  Unless you’d like that…did you miss me?”

Aziraphale looked up abruptly and Crowley flashed him that mischievous grin that was his signature, his sunglasses just low enough that the angel could see his golden yellow eyes.  Something inside of him did a somersault.  He thought it might be his stomach, but couldn't be sure; anatomy was not his strong suit nor something he ever truly needed to think about5.

He’d never stopped to appreciate his dear friend’s eyes. Beautifully gold with dark slits, a souvenir from his time in Eden.  Aziraphale usually avoided looking at them, all a bit too demonic for him.  But now he was appreciating the tinge of amber around the iris, the iridescence of the yellow, even the deep purple of the dark slits that he had always assumed to be black. He wondered why he'd never noticed before.

“Angel?” Crowley said again in a mocking sing-song voice, “Seriously have you gone completely daft?”

“Ah…no,” Aziraphale stuttered, “Just a bit shaken up, I’m afraid. Just, um, keep on this way and take the next right, bookshop is right on the corner.”

“Whatever you say, Angel,” the demon said as he took the corner on two wheels, screeching to a halt in front of the red storefront of A.Z. Fell and Co.  He stopped so short that Aziraphale almost slammed into the dashboard.  “Nice place, shame I haven’t dropped in on you yet.”

“Most definitely,” the angel said, clambering out of the car, still stuttering, “I should have you over for tea.”

“Tea?” the demon asked incredulously, “Nah, better a bottle of wine.”

Crowley took off his glasses and placed them on his hat, leaning down so Aziraphale could see him from outside the passenger window, taken aback once again by those eyes that seemed to glow and that smirk that only meant trouble.

“See you around, Angel.” 

“Promise?” Aziraphale mentally kicked himself, how sappy was that.  Crowley just shook his head and laughed.

“As far as a demon’s promise can go, Angel.”  He said with a wink.  The tires screeched as he peeled off into the distance, leaving Aziraphale waving half-heartedly to a puff of smoke.

Another new sensation.  Like a pit opening inside him.  This was _not_ like flying.  More like…falling?

Heartache was not a normal thing for an angel to feel, he worried at first that something was wrong with his body and he might discorporate. But everything was in working order except for the little voice in his head that kept chastising him for not realizing things sooner.

Not that he could do anything about it.  An angel and a demon, what a laugh.  If the Arrangement was something to fear the upstairs finding out, this was an entire other level.

Besides, what demon could ever love an angel6?

 

_*****_

“I’ll give you a lift,” Crowley had said, in a way gentler than any the angel had ever heard him, “Anywhere you want to go.”  It almost sounded like he was _pleading_ with him.  He felt the heartache just like he had years ago.

“You go too fast for me, Crowley,” Aziraphale said trying and failing to keep his voice from cracking.  It was all he could think of to say.  He wasn’t sure if Crowley would fully understand, but he prayed he might.

That was the best Aziraphale had been able to come up with at the time.  Twenty-six years had passed since the day he finally admitted to himself, standing in the wreckage of a bombed church, that maybe – just maybe – there was more to the Arrangement than convenience.

Angels couldn't fall for demons.  It wasn't a thing they could do, it wasn't a thing they  _should_ do.

Of course, demons didn’t fall for angels either.  They fell in spite of them, at best.

And now the idiot was going to go off and get himself killed trying to get holy water.  The sheer audacity of it!  At that point, what was an angel supposed to do?  At least if _he_ gave Crowley the holy water, he wouldn’t die because some idiot penny thief from SoHo mucked it up.

The reaction was not one he’d expected.  Crowley seemed almost overcome; had spoken with, if Aziraphale was not mistaken, _tenderness_.  But tenderness and demons did not go together, so he convinced himself he imagined it7.  He left the car quickly, knowing if he stayed any longer, he might admit to something he shouldn’t.  Something no angel should ever do.

He hurried back towards his bookshop, stopping after about a block to spare a glance to the Bentley he was sure was already gone. But it wasn’t.

It was just sitting there, parked in the same place. Crowley was still in it, if Aziraphale wasn’t mistaken it looked like he was rubbing his temples.  The pain in the demon’s voice was so apparent back in the car. It had almost seemed like he’d missed the angel.

It had been about 20 years since they’d seen each other with any regular occurrence.  After the war had ended, they had made a comfortable habit of seeing each other at least once a week.  Wine at the bookshop or going to restaurants, whatever suited their fancy. 

They had been getting too comfortable, too friendly.  He hadn’t been able to handle it.  The deep pit in his stomach when Crowley left; the soaring feeling when he was there.

Aziraphale may have fallen for a demon, but he was not about to Fall.

And so, he had made excuses, little white lies.  Shop was busy, work to do for Gabriel and the others.  They’d drifted apart.  For the best, really.  He spent his days busy with his books and busy keeping the customers _away_ from his books.  But when he got wind of this…well…he had to intervene.

He watched the Bentley finally pull away and silently wondered _why_ Crowley needed that Holy Water so badly.  More so he wondered if he’d see his friend again.

The pit in his stomach grew deeper, and even after a quarter of a century he didn’t know how to make it stop hurting.

 

_*****_

Laughing over wine in an overly modern monolith of a flat that honestly had no business being so dull when the person who owned it was so much the opposite.  That was the order of the day, of the week, of the last month at this point.

So much had transpired since the Nope-pocalypse and things were…well, they were nice.  Almost every night had been spent at either the bookshop or Crowley’s flat, and Aziraphale thought things were just fine that way.  Once there was a war, and after it, a steady friendship.  Now one had been averted, and an even steadier companionship after this one.

_We’re on our own side._

That’s what Crowley had said that first night, after everything had happened.  He’d extended a branch, inviting him to his place, and Aziraphale had accepted.  After the bait and switch things had fallen into this pattern.

He had noticed an undercurrent in the energy; things left unsaid; things left unmentioned.  Flighty feelings and sinking feelings still plagued him, but without a direction for this brave new world, those were all he could really hold onto right now.  The main thing he knew was he didn’t want to be alone, and apparently neither did Crowley.  And so, for the last month, this was how things had gone. 

They were both delightfully buzzed on a wonderful Chateau Margaux right now, sitting at the large stone island in Crowley’s kitchen. Crowley was recounting, once again, about his time pretending to be the angel, hissing a bit as he was prone to do when tipsy.

“And so...ssso then they make me get up and jus...jusss WALK into the bloody hellfire, it wasss like these stuffy asssss angels think they’re ss...ssso much better!  Ssso I blew some fire at them HA!  Looked like Gabriel was gonna piss himssself!”

Aziraphale just smiled at him, he still couldn’t believe they’d gotten away with it. 

“The unfortunate thing with heaven, my dear, is they’ve become their own version of hell over the last few centuries,” Aziraphale spoke while making grand gestures with his hands, a new habit he had formed now that he didn’t feel so anxious and closed off.  Sweeping hand gestures and less carefully placed words, more of what was on his mind.  It was very liberating. “They decided to streamline everything around 1800, lost everything that made it kind and soft.”8

“Pssh, never thought I'd hear you sssay that,” Crowley rolled his eyes, “Ssstill, wasss it ever kind or soft?  Thought that wasss...jussst you, Angel.”

Aziraphale was taken for a slight shock; Crowley as of late had been much more forthcoming with little compliments here and there. It was strange.  “Well,” he said, feeling a flush form on his cheeks, “I mean…if you say so…”

“Whasssss that ssssuposssed to mean?”

“Nothing, dear.  Just a bit taken by surprise, I suppose.” He swallowed hard before continuing, “Not really used to you being so, um, _nice_ , yourself.”

Aziraphale half expected a repeat of the old hospital; Crowley had been so angry when he’d called him nice then.  But no anger, just a smile.  A rare one that reached all the way to his eyes9.

“Mussst be rubbing off on me a bit then, Angel.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale started, feeling his throat grow dry and marking that down as another new thing that had never happened before, “When you said you lost your best friend, you’d been talking about me?”

Crowley sighed heavily and shook his head, “Daft Angel, of course!  Who else would I be talking about?  So clever but so, so ssstupid.”

Aziraphale smiled, a little self-satisfied if he were honest but those kinds of things didn’t seem to matter anymore.  “Well, the feeling is mutual my dear.”

Crowley was staring at him now, making him feel somewhat self-conscious.  He couldn’t quite pinpoint the emotion he was seeing in those eyes, but it seemed familiar somehow.  Hurt, almost.

“I wasss gonna kill them all, you know,” the demon said, taking another long swig of the wine, “Gabriel, Michael, Hastur, Beelzebub, all of them.  I knew it had to be one side or the other that killed you.  Well…discorporated you, but I didn't know at the time.  And I didn’t care.  I didn’t care which, I was gonna take all of them down with me for taking you away.”

Aziraphale saw a single tear roll down the demon’s cheek and, before he could stop himself, reached out to wipe it away.  “What on Earth, dear,” the angel said, voice full of concern, “I’ve never seen you like this before.”

“Just thought I lost you,” Crowley said, rubbing his eyes, “After everything, after all these years I thought I’d lost you.  Bloody month ago now, look at me.”  The demon forced a smile.

“Well, you didn't.  I’m afraid you’re stuck with me. Annoying angel on your shoulder as it were.” He shot Crowley a sidelong glance, expecting an eyeroll or a loud sigh of exasperation, but instead he saw a softness in the demon’s face that he hadn’t seen in a while.  Not since nineteen sixty-seven.

“Angel, tell me something,” Crowley took a deep breath before continuing, and the angel could tell he was sobering himself up, “Do I still go to fast for you?”

Aziraphale felt the blood rush to his face, which again was odd because it didn’t _need_ to.  Maybe he had gone a bit native, his human form seemed to think so these days at least.

“They aren’t paying attention to us anymore, Angel,” Crowley sighed, “And I can’t keep pretending anymore, not after all this.” The demon’s voice was soft, almost frightened, Aziraphale thought he could hear centuries of pent up…something…in it.

Was Crowley _really_ saying what he thought he was saying? All of the words in the entire history of the world were at Aziraphale’s disposal, all of the phrasings of every piece of literature back through to the dawn of human existence and for the first time in his very long life, he found himself speechless.  Instead he just opened and closed his mouth, trying to will something to come out.  _Just say it,_ he thought to himself, _you’ve known for decades, you’ve known for longer, tell him the truth._

But nothing would come out, all he could focus on was the fear in those yellow eyes he loved so much.  Crowley reached out and covered the angel’s hand with his own.

“Come on, Angel,” he practically begged, “Don’t just leave me hanging here.”

The sudden sensation of touch (they’d touched hands before, but this was different) broke Aziraphale from his stupor.  If words failed him right now, actions would just have to do.  He leaned forward and kissed the demon gently on the cheek, then leaned his forehead against Crowley’s.

“I think, perhaps, that is…” the angel finally managed to stammer out, “Maybe I’ve finally caught up.”

Crowley brought his other hand up to rest on the angel’s cheek, “Finally, I’ve been so tired of slowing down.”  They both laughed, but stayed like that; hand upon hand, hand upon cheek, forehead to forehead.  Aziraphale was almost overwhelmed with the wave of relief washing over him. All of these years of not knowing, not acting.  Crowley had felt the same for him after all.

“A thousand years, Angel,” Crowley said.  Aziraphale looked at him quizzically, “A thousand years at least.  I’ve loved you the whole damn bloody time.”

He felt the heat rush to his face again, finally finding the courage to say what he’d wanted to say since that night in the church rubble, when a demon who wasn’t quite a demon risked so much to save what to him must have seemed like so little, but to the angel had meant the world.

“I love you, too,” he said softly, “Let’s go for a thousand more then?  Together this time.”

 

_________________

1- To be fair, it _could_ have been violins.  God has been known, on occasion, to insert her own soundtrack into the universe when she deems it proper.

2- He had in fact noticed, and he had, in fact, nearly fainted.

3- The Employee Handbook for Nice and Proper Angel Behavior (also known by humans as the Old Testament of the Holy Bible) was a very strict one.  His centuries on Earth had led Aziraphale to ignore a few of the policies, such as the dress code (mixing clothing of different fabrics was a silly thing to make an offense of.  Did they _know_ how many different fabrics there are?) and the official staff menu (No shellfish?  Perish the thought, Aziraphale liked his oysters and shrimp too much.) were just a couple of the offending passages.

4- This had been a source of debate among the celestial bodies for a couple of centuries back before the creation of Earth itself. The eventual consensus was that yes, demons were _living_ beings and thus must be loved to a degree, but that degree was usually a strong sense of contempt.

5- Aziraphale’s shop held several books on anatomy and physiology of the human body.  The problem was that they dated from as far back as 1491.  Gladly, medical science has advanced quite a bit since then.  The problem in Aziraphale’s case is he gets confused sometimes between the old terminology and the new, such as the difference between the lymph system and the four humors.

6- That one.  Since Rome, probably since before that.

7- He had not, in fact, imagined anything.

8- It got even worse in 1980, when Gabriel had acquired an affinity for a new technological company in Cupertino, California.  He convinced all of heaven that minimalism was closer to the Almighty somehow, and thus Heaven's aesthetic could always be mistaken for having an 'i" in front of it.

9- Were it not for Crowley’s penchant for always wearing the dark sunglasses, in part to hide his eyes from humans and in part to hide his true emotions from his companion, Aziraphale would’ve known that these smiles weren’t actually all that rare when they were together. In the coming centuries he would find that out firsthand.


End file.
